“Hot?”

He tilted his head at Leah’s words. It was certainly a bit warmer, but not enough to make his face flush red like Leah’s.

“I don’t feel hot?”

Leah let out a small sigh at the man’s gaze, which seemed to think she was strange.

Her clothes were already sticking to her body with sweat.

‘Why only me….’

At that moment, when she was so hot that she was getting irritated, Leah flinched as if someone had struck the back of her head.

‘Could it be.’

A forgotten fact suddenly flashed through her mind.

‘Side effects…?’

Why hadn’t she thought of it? That the symptoms she was experiencing now were so similar to those from that night.

‘Oh my goodness. Why! Here of all places!’

She squeezed her eyes shut as if facing an unbelievable truth.

As soon as she realized that the inexplicable heat was a side effect, a strange sensation spread throughout her body, as if pricking her all over.

“What’s wrong?”

The duke approached her, noticing that Leah’s condition seemed a bit odd.

As she felt the duke’s body heat coming closer, Leah was engulfed in an unbearable heat.

“It’s nothing. But could you move away a bit? I’m feeling a bit hot…”

“Move away? Here?”

Leah stepped back from the duke, who had come close enough to touch. The duke frowned deeply at Leah’s request to sit at a distance in this narrow space.

“I’ve been too hot since earlier, and I’m sweating a lot. I think I might smell a bit…”

She answered in a deliberately calm voice, but the duke didn’t seem to believe her at all. Rather, he seemed to have noticed something from Leah’s earlier words.

“Tell me what’s going on.”

As she tried to avoid his direct gaze, Leah was caught by Akkia. The duke cupped Leah’s cheeks and forcibly made eye contact.

The hot sensation from Akkia’s fingertips was not unfamiliar. Leah’s entire body was burning as if embracing a ball of fire.

Leah bit her lip hard. The moment he saw her habit of chewing her lip when in trouble.

“You, don’t tell me…”

Akkia realized. That the side effects of the new drug had manifested in Leah.

“…”

“…”

After a brief silence between them, Leah was the first to move away from him, removing Akkia’s hands from her cheeks.

‘I can endure it. I can endure it.’

Leah repeated countless times that she could endure it.

In this enclosed space. In this precarious place that could collapse at any moment. The side effects were not what mattered.

‘I have to endure somehow. So endure.’

But no matter how much she chanted like a spell, her body was getting hotter, contrary to her will. Moreover, it was agonizing as her whole body seemed to shiver every time Akkia’s touch grazed her.

Leah forcibly smoothed her furrowed brow.

“I’m really fine. So… please, some distance.”

– Tak.

But she couldn’t finish her words.

“Leah.”

Before Leah could escape from him, the duke caught her wrist first. Leah’s heart tightened at the coolness she felt on her wrist where his touch landed.

‘If this continues, I…’

Her thirst intensified as if she needed to swallow all the coolness in this world. And as that thirst gradually deepened.

– Tak.

Leah’s back touched the salt wall. The rough salt dug into her clothes, but she had no time to care.

Because the duke’s breath, now close enough to reach, tickled her face.

“You can use me.”

And his red eyes, burning as if they had swallowed flames, entangled with Leah.

It was truly strange. Clearly, it was she who was experiencing the side effects.

Yet why were the man’s eyes filled with such intense passion? Leah’s eyes trembled as she looked at him.

How wicked.

She bit her lip as she saw the man’s eyes flickering more hotly than her own body.

To think she had been trying so hard to endure with such feelings.

‘With that voice and that face, saying such things, I…’

Leah’s lower lip, which she was biting, turned pale. It was like a sweet chocolate offered to a hungry child.

She had been trying so hard to resist that temptation, like the whisper of a devil.

Leah’s brow furrowed deeply as she watched the man’s lips move slowly. Then, in a voice mixed with heated breath, she murmured.

“…You’ll have to take responsibility for those words.”

The corners of his mouth turned up at the woman’s words, demanding responsibility with half-lidded eyes.

“As much as you want.”

A low voice wrapping around her ear.

The man’s voice, which tickled her heart and made her insides flutter, was more sensual than ever.

And as soon as Akkia finished speaking, Leah pulled his neck with both arms as if embracing him and crashed her lips against his.

Clearly, she was the one who initiated the kiss, yet Leah let out a heated breath as if overwhelmed by the duke’s hot breath that soon invaded.

Leah gently pushed his shoulders, but the duke didn’t budge.

“…Leah.”

“Your Grace…”

‘Is this really a side effect?’

No. Perhaps, this might not be a side effect at all.

Where this place was, why they had come in here. She couldn’t remember any of it.

It just felt like the duke in front of her was her entire world right now.

Leah’s unfocused eyes gazed at the man.

“Your Grace.”

Leah’s touch, as pitiful as her pleading voice, pulled the back of the duke’s neck.

Their lips locked again without any gap. As the two’s breaths deepened, the cool temperature of the mine gradually heated up.

.

.

.

– Bang!

– Bang!

Along with noises that shook the mine, the ground they were lying on began to rumble. And shortly after.

“Your Grace!”

Along with voices calling for them, a thin light seeped through the darkness. At this, Leah gently opened her eyes.

Then Akkia covered her eyes with his large hand and murmured.

“It’s alright, sleep more.”

At the man’s gentle voice, like a lullaby, she unknowingly fell back into a deep sleep.

The man, who had been quietly smiling at Leah who had fallen asleep again soon after, wrapped Leah’s body with his jacket.

Then he lifted her into his arms.

Not even a strand of hair visible. So that no one could see Leah’s appearance.

As night fell, Akkia was listening to the report of the person in charge, Cox, inside the rescue headquarters.

“The search team that came out with the missing people has already finished treatment. The doctor says that even the miner who was rescued last is not in danger of losing his life.”

“That’s good news.”

“No, it’s because the pharmacist did such a good job with first aid. The doctors didn’t have much to do.”

As praise for Leah, who was by his side, continued, a faint smile appeared on Akkia’s ice-cold face.

Cox placed the organized documents in front of Akkia.

“Is the pharmacist still not awake?”

“Yes, not yet.”

“I see. By the way, we are proceeding with what you instructed right away.”

Akkia’s cold gaze fell on Cox. The first thing he did after coming out of the mine was to order new support beams for the mine.

With the rotten support beams, it wouldn’t be strange if the mine collapsed again at any time.

Moreover, the steam rising with the water bubbling up from the ground.

That was clearly…

If what Akkia thought was correct, the already rotten support beams would obviously collapse faster.

He tapped the desk with his finger as if pondering something.

“It’s strange.”

Akkia’s voice, as cold as his icy gaze, echoed through the tent. Cox swallowed nervously.

He was already uneasy after receiving instructions to order new support beams. Wondering if Duke Heidern had found out something.

“Who could have embezzled the money for the support beams?”

“…”

“You don’t know anything about this?”

Cox froze at Akkia’s direct gaze, which seemed to ask if he had done it. The person in charge’s lips trembled at the gaze that seemed to be interrogating him.

“I, I don’t know anything about it.”

“Really?”

Akkia’s narrowed eyes fell on Cox and then away. The duke picked up the report he had put down and started reading.

“Starting with the collapse of Room 3, Rooms 4 and 5 collapsed in order. These are the rooms that were recently mined out.”

It was clearly due to the poor support beams in Rooms 3, 4, and 5. They had set up rotten beams as supports from the beginning.

And Akkia recalled Room 0 where he had been trapped with Leah.

Rooms 0, 1, and 2 were relatively problem-free with the support beams as they had been mined earlier. Therefore, this mine collapse incident was a man-made disaster that occurred after the person in charge changed.

‘This guy is definitely the culprit of the embezzlement.’

Akkia looked Cox up and down and asked.

“Did you find what I instructed?”

“What? Yes! He, here it is. But why are you looking for such things?”

Cox handed over pieces of mine rock to Akkia. They were some of the debris that had been at the entrance.

“You don’t need to know. Just do what I told you to do properly.”

Akkia’s eyes shone sharply as he looked intently at the pile of stones.

Leah’s eyelids fluttered in the barracks, and her vision brightened. Just regaining consciousness, Leah began to assess the situation by looking around.

“This is…”

When did they escape from the mine? The snow-white bedding that warmly enveloped Leah caught her fingertips.

Then fragments of memories began to flood into her mind.

‘Surely, with His Grace…’

She recalled her own figure clinging to him before losing consciousness.

The sweet scent emanating from Akkia when she nestled deep in his arms. The sound of melted salt water sloshing was still vividly ringing in her ears.

‘In the end, it ended up like this.’

Leah’s brow furrowed as she recalled what had happened in the mine.

At first, it was a kiss that started as a side effect. But even though she felt the heat from the side effect subside, she couldn’t push him away.

Surely Akkia must have felt her fever gradually subsiding too. But in place of the high fever that disappeared, a deep desire bloomed, replacing the side effect.

‘It wasn’t because of the side effect.’

Leah tightly gripped the bedding in her hand.

There was fear that the mine had collapsed and they might die. But when she woke up in the mine and saw Akkia before her eyes, even that fear subsided.

If it was Akkia.

If it was the duke, was it because of a vague trust that he would somehow find a way out of this mine?

She had been so intoxicated with Akkia that she forgot they were at a crossroads between life and death. And even after the side effect had manifested and then subsided, she couldn’t push him away.

‘I like the duke.’

Leah bit her lip hard at the emotion that had grown too big to avoid now.

Would you like me to explain or break down the translation?